Wave Power

Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed an unusual way to harvest wave power, with a gently rolling cylinder designed around the triboelectric effect that causes static shocks after you walk on certain carpets.

Sweden's Eco Wave Power has been proving its relatively simple, jetty-mounted wave energy devices for at least 10 years now, and has now inked a conditional deal for a 77-megawatt installation in Turkey - the world's largest wave power plant.

This remarkable desalination device, made from recycled plastic bottles, floats in the ocean and runs on wave power, creating up to 13,000 gallons (53,000 liters) of fresh water a day – and discharging far less toxic brine than other designs.

Scotland's AWS Energy has reported results some 20% better than predicted for its Archimedes Waveswing, a prototype wave energy generator that's been undergoing ocean-based testing at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney for the last 6 months.

Irish company OceanEnergy has already tested its oscillating water column generators at significant scale in Hawaii, and it's just signed on to a four-year project to test, validate and commercialize its biggest unit yet off Orkney, in Scotland.

The UniWave sea platform is an artificial blowhole that harvests energy from ocean waves. Independent analysis now predicts it'll create some of the cheapest renewable energy on the market – and some of the most reliable and predictable, as well.

A new class of elastic energy converters is emerging, with the ability to capture energy from a variety of different motions. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory is pushing to deploy them, first in a series of strange, bendy wave energy designs.

CalWave has been working on its xWave clean power technology for many years now, and has announced the successful conclusion of an extended open-ocean test off the coast of San Diego, in which the device demonstrated over 99% system uptime.

Sea Wave Energy Ltd has been working for more than a decade on an ultra-cheap floating wave energy device. With several prototypes tested, the company is promising capacities over 100 MW, with unheard-of energy cost figures under 1 cent per kWh. Hmm.

Wave Swell Energy's remarkable UniWave 200 is a sea platform that uses an artificial blowhole formation to create air pressure changes that drive a turbine and feed energy back to shore. After a year of testing, the company reports excellent results.

Sweden-based Eco Wave Power has announced that the first of 10 floats has been successfully installed on the sea wall at Jaffa Port in Israel, marking an important milestone for the company's second grid-connected wave energy harvesting project.

If you've ever peeked below the surface of the ocean, you'll have seen seaweed waving back and forth in the current. Scientists from China's Dalian Maritime University have now utilized that same motion in an underwater energy-harvesting device.